C.T. wrote:Illinois lawmakers are weighing legislation aimed at preventing manufacturers of synthetic marijuana from skirting laws banning the substance often sold and branded as “Spice” or “K2.”

The effort comes after public health officials reported that four people have died in recent weeks after using synthetic cannabinoids believed to be laced with rat poison. Another 164 people have been sickened by the substance also known as “fake weed,” showing up in hospital emergency rooms after coughing up blood or experiencing bleeding in their urine, nose or gums. Most cases have been reported in the Chicago or Peoria areas.

Synthetic cannabinoids are a man-made mixture of hundreds of chemicals that affect the same brain cell receptors as the active ingredient in marijuana — commonly known as THC — that causes people to get a euphoric high. The chemicals are typically sprayed on a plant material to be smoked, or the mixture can be sold in a liquid form to be used in e-cigarettes or vaping devices.Illinois has passed several laws over the years designed to keep synthetic marijuana off the shelves, but manufacturers often tweak the formula to get around rules banning certain chemicals. In fewer than 10 years, the types of synthetic cannabinoid formulas jumped from two in 2009 to more than 80 in 2015, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Now, a measure that cleared the state Senate this week would ban all types of synthetic cannabinoids instead of just specific formulas. It’s a “catch-all” approach designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing laws that only ban specific chemical combinations. Drugs that would be prohibited include any synthetic cannabinoids as well as piperazines or synthetic cathinones that are not approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Manufacturing or delivery of those substances would carry two to five years of prison time and fines of as much as $25,000. Possession may result in at least one year in jail.

“What this bill does is it closes that loophole,” said Sen. Jacqueline Collins, a Democrat from Chicago who is sponsoring the legislation. “Right now you can go into many of these corner stores on the South and West Side and see these drugs on display. It’s very popular, it’s cheap and easy access, but it’s deadly.”

The proposal passed without opposition, and is now in the House for consideration.

That's odd, this news should be very important to the UK which has a a big spice problem. Is Europe a big market for spice?Spice is not "potent weed", since it does not contain terpenes and the other spectrum of compounds, one can call it "potent/synthetic weed" as much as sex dolls can be called "synthetic females", it's some artificial shite.Although mostly I've only had low quality Indian street weed, and I've had such (-->) only once or twice, I love good strains of weed, like rare strains and cool genetics (like the purple, red, orange, yellow, golden, black colored buds that are now seen in the US)... sativas that get you high and boost your nonlinear thinking as well as bodily indicas... but you can't call good gene weeds (high THC content is a typical characteristic, but there are other compounds of note like limonene) something that gets you "too high", this "spice" is different. Maybe what passes for "skunk" in some places is crappy weed with spice mixed in, maybe since something like that would be easier to smuggle? After all because of prohibition in many places, weed lovers have to depend on the mafia for their supply. And this should be a problem in Europe, ref the historic "spice traders" (hashashins), Ferdinand, a Berliner at the hemp museum told me, get your weed from the blacks, not the Arabs, because sometimes the latter's weed is not safe, as i said, a seedy history.

It's sad that human health is sacrificed due to these sociopolitical/economic calisthenics. A friendly planet would have been with most people being "friends in need = friends with weed", weed & seeds used to be shared (among the rare weed lovers) just after ww2 quite a lot.

* (voted the worst film ever** yet it had a lasting impact maybe a reaction to the excesses of the Hippie Age ... Hippie is not equal to hipster, the hipsters did only weed, the hippies did all kinds of shit like lsd, crack, coke etc.)

Pedro I Rengel wrote:At best, fun can be replaced by stoicism. At worst, dread.

And I also think that stoics live dreadful lives. You live, you control your will to the last detail so as to be absolute moral, then you die.

Blegh. Is that really health? It seems more like a palleative to me.

Fun & exploratory fun is very important, and indeed the meaning of health, i completely agree that most have forgotten how to have fun; depressed, they reactively label people like us, as "childish". This is another way to look at the modern problem, agreed -- a neurosis of the mainstream. Although one can be moral and not tread on other do-gooders' lives (and be moral and defeat pseudo-moral ignoramuses) and still have fun.

But indeed the idea of austerity and holding back fun is ludicrous.Maybe you'll find the work of Reich interesting?

Wiki wrote:The question at the heart of Reich's book was this: why did the masses turn to authoritarianism even though it is clearly against their interests?[5] Reich set out to analyze "the economic and ideological structure of German society between 1928 and 1933" in this book.[6] In it, he calls Bolshevism "red fascism", and groups it in the same category as Nazism.

Reich argued that the reason Nazism was chosen over communism was sexual repression. As children, members of the proletariat had learned from their parents to suppress sexual desire. Hence, in adults, rebellious and sexual impulses caused anxiety. Fear of revolt, as well as fear of sexuality, were thus "anchored" in the character of the masses. This influenced the irrationality of the people, Reich would argue:[5]

Reich wrote:Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, good and adjusted in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. At first the child has to submit to the structure of the authoritarian miniature state, the family; this makes it capable of later subordination to the general authoritarian system. The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and anxiety.[5]

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I read some Reich some time ago. He's not dumb. But he does imply that you can organize health under a system, communism. What can be less fun than limits? In the process he took Freud a little for granted and forgot how tentative everything Freud said was.

His hopefulness often blinded him. Why? Probably because he didn't take Freud seriously enough and wanted a solution so bad that it became more important to him than truth.

"I am not fazed by myself. I have dragged myself through too much of myself to be fazed. Others are disturbed by the slightes articulation of themselves. But they are unfazed by the machine."

Pedro I Rengel wrote:I read some Reich some time ago. He's not dumb. But he does imply that you can organize health under a system, communism. What can be less fun than limits? In the process he took Freud a little for granted and forgot how tentative everything Freud said was.

His hopefulness often blinded him. Why? Probably because he didn't take Freud seriously enough and wanted a solution so bad that it became more important to him than truth.

So he didn't attack the root cause of the problem, master/slave disorder (which is crystallized in the communism-like hierarchy)? I thought he would have been pro-individualism. I have not really read Reich, only read about him in Wiki.

So that must be why Reich was rejected by the free world? He might have been associated with the Austrian school, which can be called (the forces behind) communism pretending as reformative capitalism and ignoring the work of Silvio Gesell?

Pedro I Rengel wrote:Overlooking the google results for this Gesell, he seems to talk about natural orders an socialism.

This is still in the master slave disorder. Just that nature is seen as master. Anarchists are smarter than communists, but not smart enough to break free.

Yes he uses the term socialism and he also wasn't very explicit about the nature of free land although his idea of free money had some remarkable novelties that rendered usury type of parasitism impotent.

Ah, well, I guess everyone who was ever put up as a theorist of promise had hidden puppet strings manipulating him or her, indeed that's why they got any mention in the press at all.

Popular realization about the nature of master/slave disorder could be the solution [1].

It is the most classic form of mental disorder (domestication). Support for this disorder (and efforts for its rationalization) can be seen everywhere, traditional academia, corporations, the state...

The state should only exist to protect individuals against groups and preemptively disintegrate groups to discourage groupism (= master/slave disorder), because if we say "no state" like the anarchists, that still leaves room for an undeclared state (large group) to blanket individuals and bind them into servitude.

Thus the theory of ideal state, and the nature of state, and (epigenetically induced) mental disease (domestication) in the masses, are directly related.

The problem at hand is delicate:

How to prevent the anti-groupist state from becoming groupist itself? Considering the human's inherent predisposition for groupism because of genetic trace of domestication? (As Tolkien said about Morgoth and men)

Even someone as unreliable as Marx had superficially addressed this question (maybe explains his lasting popularity).

It needs open offices to be staffed by the most individualistic [2] individuals on a rotating basis (small tenure of say 3 months, similar to compulsary 2-year military service, everyone has to do (anti-groupist) policing duty once in a while, for example... "expertise"/specialisation is overstated).

Maybe this is the structure of state that can discourage the human tendency to collapse into master/slave disorder.

They have glass walled houses for reality TV shows, but we need glass walls and public-accessible CCTV feed eyes on corporate top management and all government buildings (with the reasoning that groups plotting in secret is a public hazard).

So much for the theory of ideal government.The theory of correct economics, on the other hand, seems very simple, just print money and give it to people who do (provably necessary, logical) things like reforestation, animal repopulation etc., the kind of stuff that is really needed rather than bubbles hyped by ignorance. This can be the only acceptable form of universal basic income (say you get this money for 20 hours a week at your convenience, of doing such activities) or money creation/distribution.

2] how to select the most individualistic individuals? Get them to play complex computer games, and other games, and whoever wins, is such. This is in fact the method invented by Zeus when Zeus made the Olympic Games, which was actually a front for Hercules selection.

Last edited by anand_droog on Wed Aug 29, 2018 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That seems somewhat untennable. How can state be the solution for state?

Better a positive for then a negative against. It is probably idealized against that gave rise to master slave in the first place.

Fun can be had with state, without state, with parasites, without parasites. It sets its own direction. It recognizes no masters exept in the kung fu sense and no slaves except willing slaves. And anyway, bossing slaves around is no fun.

"I am not fazed by myself. I have dragged myself through too much of myself to be fazed. Others are disturbed by the slightes articulation of themselves. But they are unfazed by the machine."

Pedro I Rengel wrote:That seems somewhat untennable. How can state be the solution for state?

Better a positive for then a negative against. It is probably idealized against that gave rise to master slave in the first place.

Fun can be had with state, without state, with parasites, without parasites. It sets its own direction. It recognizes no masters exept in the kung fu sense and no slaves except willing slaves. And anyway, bossing slaves around is no fun.

What I mean when i say "state" is simply an understanding among all individuals, that if any 2 of us gang up against the rest (as in marriage), or many against the rest -- if master/slave disorder is spotted -- that will be contained by others.

(and all are "police" in this limited sense and apart from that, it's Crowley's "do as thou wilt" (without coming in the way of others who're also similarly free, which will be facilitated by all; there is no specific police etc., that's just a forerunner of corruption)

Because nobody is supposed to psychologically dominate susceptible people, all are supposed to be individualistic, and if some are doing this, it is a common threat to all.

And then, some structure is needed to uphold economic policy, but even that should be open/broadcasted to all eyes...

But nothing much of a state apart from this seems to be justifiable...

Maybe i shouldn't use the term state but a contract. What we need is a new universal constitution on these lines. The American founding fathers made a start, nobody's ever continued on it.

Pedro I Rengel wrote:That's no fun. If people gang up against me, that actually sounds fun. That's a great game. Rules will only weaken my ability to act.

If there's no state-like structure (only to protect the individual against herds) -- individualists, who're kind to all and do their own thing and have little ability to get alone with or be in herds (a classic example is myself), will be picked off, in their sleep, one by one, as already happens at places... and herdism will prevail. Earth will become the next Mars, a desert planet. It sounds like fun but is not.

The problem, or disease of the state, is when the state becomes everything except that, and ultimately becomes a servant of the herds/lobbyists.

The ancient Egyptians already spoke of it:"When the governing class is not chosen for quality it is chosen for material wealth: this always means decadence for a society to reach".- (Karnak Temple)

Pedro I Rengel wrote:There is no "group" of individuals. Only alliances which are fun and bound by nothing but that they are fun.

Would you not count the activities of the Board of members of Enron or any corrupt company, say monsanto, as an alliance of people having fun? You think it is acceptable? I, probably not. But if you mean true fun rather than sadistic pseudo-fun, or parasitic hyper-consumption (white collar crime kind of disguised exploitation or quasi-slavery) pretending as fun as a desperate attempt at rationalization, I would agree.

From what I've heard, Enron was a supremely stressful and abusive workplace. Everyone hated it. Was the top guy having fun?

That's on the idiots who worked for him or with him. Not on him. He was just doing his thing! But I don't think he was, because it was not a sustainable company and didn't grow and was deatined to fall.

"I am not fazed by myself. I have dragged myself through too much of myself to be fazed. Others are disturbed by the slightes articulation of themselves. But they are unfazed by the machine."